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Vintage Snowglobe DIY

For the past week, I’ve been revisiting traditional Christmas recipes and traditions. Today I have something slightly different in mind. Yes, it’s a Christmas craft!

I was watching this Rachael Ray segment last week where this guest she had on made snow globes (did anyone see this?). She made it sound pretty easy, so I decided to give it a whirl. I should mention here that I think I have a touch of an artsy/creative side, but I’m by no means a hard-core crafter. A visit to the craft store is maybe a once or twice yearly visit for me.

Here’s what you need:

Small jars (such as canning jars, or old food jars)

Glycerin (I found this at Michael’s for $2.99 near where they sell cake stuff)

Glitter

Christmas miniatures or ornaments (after visiting SEVERAL stores, I found adorable Victorian-style Christmas miniatures at Joann’s for 70% off!)

Strong glue – I used gorilla glue

Newspapers or other material to protect your counters

In all sincerity, the trickiest part of this whole thing for me was assembling everything I’d need. I ended up buying some small canning jars at WinCo for this craft. But I found a few others in my fridge, too (their food contents were old and almost done with anyways). I was able to remove the sticky labels with hot water and an S.O.S. pad.As mentioned above, I found these adorable miniatures at my Joann’s store. They were in a section where they had Christmas houses – I believe in art supplies? They were sold individually and were 70% off. That made the small figures about $1.49 each! The trees were a mere $0.41 each.Next I decided which figure to place in which jar. This is where I could’ve planned a wee bit better. Some of my figures were too tall! Fortunately most of them were able to fit into one jar or the other. I noticed though that my trees were flaking a bit, so I opted to not use them in the snow globes. (I didn’t want them “shedding” in the water!)At this point, my little daughter was cracking me up. She was narrating for many of the figurines, exclaiming, “help! help! I’m trapped!” Never a dull moment.

Now on the Rachael Ray show, her guest glued the figures to the bottom of each jar – right on the glass. I opted to glue the figures on the lids for two reasons: 1) it would be easier to get just the right position and 2) that way when you flipped it upside down, it would better resemble a globe.
For each figure, I used a good amount of the gorilla glue, and held it tightly in place for 30 seconds.Then I let the glue dry for a good hour before completing the craft.Once the glue was dry, I added some glitter, water (leaving only a small gap), and a few drops of glycerin. The glycerin allows the glitter to slowly move around in the water, giving the allusion of gently falling snow.Add a little more gorilla/super glue to the inside of the lid before screwing it on.Viola! That’s it! Simple, really!Since I had some leftover miniatures and trees, I decided to make a table centerpiece. I simply arranged the snow globes and the leftovers on an old mirror I had. I accented with a few tealights.I just love the way this turned out!Now of course, these would make lovely handmade gifts…you could easily add a Christmas sticker or write on the bottoms of the lids in permanent marker.But I’m going to be honest. I don’t know if I can part with any of them!Here they are on my table…They are also adorable in a window sill…What do you think??

If you need additional homemade Christmas gift ideas, make sure to check out my post:

Comments

Do you need to use distilled water for this? I thought you had to add something to keep the water from discoloring later? If the glycerin is all I need, man, I’m running down to do this craft! SO cute! My kids LOVE snowglobes! I know we’ll love doing this craft! I might also do this with the kids in Sunday school – I have the little ones and this looks easy enough for them to do as well. I can just pre-glue some of the figurines to the lids. Thanks for sharing! <3

I will definitely have to try this with my girls. My mom collects snow globes and my girls won’t be getting anything for Christmas this year (because of finances) much less be able to buy gifts for Mimi (my mom)…so I might just have them put a few of these together to send to Mimi for Christmas. I think she’ll love them because they’re homemade from her little granddaughters and they would go well with her collection.

Also, I tried the eggnog that you posted you didn’t get a chance to try…the eggless eggnog. Absolutely divine. I did this one because I had all the ingredients and it was simply easy to put together and then drink. Yummy. Thanks for sharing all these wonderful ideas.

Hi. I'm Angela. My goal is to help you live well for less. I practice ethical, common sense couponing and report on a wide-range of deals including grocery, apparel, and travel. I also write about frugal living topics including gardening, shopping tips, and cooking. I'm blogging out of the greater Seattle/Tacoma area. I'm a proud firefighter's wife and mother of two. New? START HERE.